The Biomedical Engineering Shared Resource (BESR) provides quality and efficient service to the research and clinical areas of the institution. The preventive maintenance (PM) program is designed to find and prevent potential failures. The PM program reduces equipment downtime and increases equipment reliability. Corrective maintenance is done at component level whenever possible in an effort to keep cost and downtime to a minimum. The department also has a machine shop facility for the construction of special projects. The machine shop provides the Cancer Center members with a source for obtaining unique, built to order projects in a timely manner. The BESR has been a part of the institution for over 25 years. The facility includes 10 full-time employees and 1 part-time student providing service for a variety of equipment throughout the institution. Some of the equipment types serviced are: spectrophotometers, centrifuges, incubators, power supplies, balances, densitometers, Geiger counters, gel dryers, vacuum pumps, diagnostic imaging equipment, patient monitoring equipment, and life support equipment. The BESR has an equipment service section for the repair and calibration of basic research and clinical research equipment and a machine shop facility for the design and fabrication of special projects. The facility services 11,750 devices and the Cancer Center members use approximately 66% of these devices. All work performed is documented in the BESR equipment database and the Investigators are billed monthly through the Financial Services Department. The facility is located on the plaza level of the Danny Thomas Research Tower. This has proven to be a convenient location for the Cancer Center members to drop off equipment for repair or calibration.